


eyes meeting over the noise

by mapped



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 03:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10563000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapped/pseuds/mapped
Summary: Anne, Max, and Eleanor in the aftermath of Eleanor's romantic entanglement with Vane. A pre-series triptych.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ballantine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/gifts).



> Hey Bal, I really liked your prompt about these three and their pre-series interactions – I hope this is something like what you wanted! Enjoy! <3
> 
> Title from Vienna Teng - 'The Atheist Christmas Carol'.

Anne just doesn’t understand what the fuck is up with Vane and that cunt he’s so obsessed with. They keep getting into fights, screaming at each other and throwing things around the tavern, and then Vane will go off and sulk for days, but he’ll be back at her door again before long and they’ll spend hours in that office—fucking, probably. And Vane will come out with a satisfied smile, but then weeks later they’ll just do all of that again, and Anne’s just tired of having to witness it all.

She wouldn’t even be witnessing it if not for the fact that Jack insists on following Vane around, and of course she has to follow Jack around, because what else is she gonna do? So she sits in the tavern and watches the Guthrie cunt and Vane fight yet again. Vane fumes and strides off. Jack hurriedly gets up to tail him, but there’s really no need. Vane only marches across the road into the inn.

Why can’t everyone else just be simple like her and Jack? Jack and her, they never fight. They don’t argue. If there’s something they disagree on, then they just stare at each other until one of them gives in, and any disagreement only lasts for a minute at most. 

Anne’s eyes flicker around the inn’s green walls for a moment before being pulled back to the ground. She doesn’t look at any of the girls. She doesn’t. She fills a cup with rum and she drinks. They sit down and Jack orders some food for them. What’s the fucking point of being here and watching Vane? She doesn’t get it, but she doesn’t care. She just eats her steak of beef, sawing away at the meat with her knife.

She looks up for a moment, and her eyes land on one of the girls. Might be the prettiest of them. Dark curls of hair and warm brown skin, like the beach at sunset. She doesn’t know the girl’s name—and that’s a weird thing to bother her when it’s not like she knows the name of any of the girls here. The girl is whispering in another girl’s ear, giggling, running her hand through the other girl’s hair. It’s probably all a bit of a show for the customer who’s practically salivating over the two girls. Men like seeing this sort of thing, don’t they? 

But it makes Anne feel upset, somehow. She stabs her steak viciously, slants her gaze at Jack, who’s still watching Vane raptly.

When Anne looks in the direction of that girl again, their eyes meet. The girl’s eyes are thickly painted. They make Anne think of candles smoking in the dark. The girl seems to be smiling right at her, but maybe—maybe she’s smiling past Anne at someone sitting further behind. Why would she be smiling at Anne?

Anne’s eyes slide away. She feels unbalanced, like she always feels the first moment her feet hit the deck after climbing aboard a ship.

When they’ve finished eating, she grabs Jack and drags him upstairs, kisses him hard, fucks him until they both forget there’s a world outside that room.

* * *

Max is confused by Eleanor Guthrie. Why is she here, when she owns a tavern across the street and can drown her sorrows there, or, better yet, in the privacy of her office? Perhaps she is hoping for a glimpse of her former lover, who does indeed frequent this inn. But tonight, Captain Vane is not here, nor his underlings, that quartermaster with the absurd hair and the red-haired woman who never leaves his side. The woman who is more shadow than substance, but who always somehow draws Max’s eye, even though for all her ruby-red hair, she is the very opposite of a gem catching the light.

Captain Vane is not here, but Eleanor is at the bar, pouring herself more rum.

What a powerful woman Eleanor Guthrie is, and yet she lets herself brood in this inn where everyone can see her, glaring sullenly at the wall, pouting like a child. Moping because of a man _she_ has ended a relationship with. Max’s lips curl in distaste. If she had such power as Eleanor does, she would never be seen in public like this, broken over a mere man.

But there is something about Eleanor that fascinates her, even now. She has always been in awe of Eleanor, but to see Eleanor vulnerable and shrouded in gloom like this makes the awe soften into something else, something less intimidating. She feels as if she is a little girl again, standing on the tip of her toes outside a house, looking through the window at a beautiful girl who has everything she does not, but this time, she can—she can approach that beautiful girl, and she can find out what makes them so different.

So she does. She insinuates herself between Eleanor and the bar, and she asks, in her low molten voice that is sure to make men shiver with pleasure, “How may I help you?” 

Though not a man, Eleanor shivers too, looking at Max with eyes that are unfocused at first but then swiftly sharpen, and it is Max’s turn to shudder, skin prickling with a strange delight, to have the full attention of this woman before her, the woman who runs the island. “I don’t need anything,” Eleanor says. Her words are brusque but her eyes linger, a patient blue like the sky waiting for the clouds to part and show the sun.

“Ah, ma chère,” Max says, forcing herself not to tremble as she reaches for Eleanor’s hand, her fingers drawing a careful trail over Eleanor’s knuckles. “Everyone who is here needs something. Even if it is only a willing ear to listen to your troubles. A woman like you must be a very difficult thing for men to understand.” 

Eleanor laughs bitterly, but she doesn’t snatch her hand away. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Max considers this, and then she says, “It is a good thing that you have ended your relationship with Captain Vane.”

Eleanor’s eyes narrow. “And why do you think you’re qualified to have an opinion on the matter?”

“We hear so much in this inn,” Max says, smiling. “I believe I am qualified to have an opinion on many matters. Captain Vane was starting to think that no matter what he did, he would always stay in your good books. I think you did well to teach him otherwise, or he could have upset the balance of this place.”

“You’re the first person to actually say that to me,” Eleanor says. “Everyone else has just been so concerned that _I’ve_ upset the balance of this place by angering him. ‘Oh, Eleanor, think of what havoc he may wreak to repay you for this!’ Well, whatever he’s going to do, I can fucking handle it. Besides, I’m not going to keep fucking him just for the good of this place when I’ve already had enough of his bullshit and his ridiculous insistence that he knows what’s best for me.”

It is even more intense than Max expected, to converse with Eleanor. From afar, Eleanor is already a warm fire, but up close she is a furnace. Max doubts the truth of Eleanor’s words, though. If Eleanor really did think it was the best thing for this place, would she not in fact keep fucking Vane? Or perhaps that is just the distorted perspective of a whore. But after all, Max has heard the stories of how Eleanor Guthrie once drove Edward Teach off the island by whispering in the ear of Charles Vane as she fucked him.

“You see,” Max says. “You do need something.” She strokes Eleanor’s wrist with her fingers. “You need a person who is on the outside of it all, who will listen to you and offer her true understanding.” Her eyes drift over Eleanor’s wheat-gold hair and coral-pink cheeks. Her knee brushes against Eleanor’s. “Do you have a sister?” 

“I did once,” Eleanor says, eyes flitting away, chasing the recollection of some faded loss. Max thinks again of the window, the house, the girl she wanted to be but was not, or perhaps the girl she wanted to play with but never could. She has never been quite certain which it was. “Something like that, anyway.”

“I will be something better than that,” Max murmurs, tucking her thumb under Eleanor’s chin, urging Eleanor to look at her again. “I promise you I will be anything you need me to be.” Eleanor’s brows quirk with questioning hope; her eyes are oddly, endearingly shy, and clear like the clouds have finally parted and the sun is shining through. It seems such a precious thing, eyes that usually look so disappointed with the world regarding Max with such hesitant wonder. In her mind, she fervently vows never to be a cause of disappointment in those eyes.

She leads Eleanor up the stairs, and she feels as if she is taking her first step inside that forbidden house of her childhood. 

* * *

Eleanor needs a drink, and she needs the warmth of Max’s skin. She’s just spent half a day at her father’s plantation and meeting with her father always makes her feel so queasy, like the first day of her monthly bleed does, and there’s no remedy for it. No herbal tea, no hot compress.

But when she enters the inn, she instantly wants to turn and run.

Charles is here, with a lapful of some girl. Eleanor feels even more ill than before, but her eyes search the inn for Max instead. And there she is, her side to Eleanor, a beautiful rope of black hair over her shoulder. Eleanor makes for her, slips her hands around Max’s waist.

“He is here,” Max says, the words a soft breath against the shell of Eleanor’s ear.

“I know,” Eleanor mutters.

“Would you like to go upstairs?”

Eleanor shakes her head. Max frowns, touching her hand to Eleanor’s cheek. “Something else is wrong,” she muses. “Did you visit your father today?”

Eleanor makes a small noise, and then she kisses Max, desperate and hard and quick. “He’s being a stubborn obstructive arse as usual,” Eleanor says. “Doesn’t see the point of anything I’m trying to accomplish here.” Her eyes slink downwards, and then she makes the mistake of glancing Charles’ way. The girl’s grinding on his lap while he bites down on her neck, eyes feral and fixed on Eleanor. Eleanor doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do with this feeling that’s gnawing her stomach, twisting from nausea into arousal and back again. She remembers what it was like to be in that girl’s position, to feel the heat of him against her.

“Eleanor,” Max says, tugging on her arm, coaxing her attention back. “Let us go upstairs.”

“No,” Eleanor says. “Let’s just—stay here a moment.” She takes in Max’s lovely dark hair and anxious eyes, the rich gold-brown of them the exact shade that Eleanor thinks prosperity must be, if prosperity were a colour. She kisses Max again, losing herself in it this time, the deep languid slide of her tongue in Max’s mouth, her hand making a ruin of Max’s hair, her other hand at Max’s back, pressing Max close to her.

When they break apart, Max’s eyes dart to the side. “He is looking at us,” Max says, and Eleanor refuses to look his way again. “You want him to notice us.”

“No, I—” Her hand is still in Max’s hair, fingers loosely grasping and moving in patterns against Max’s scalp. “I’m not using you like that,” she says fiercely.

“Ma chère, it does not bother me if you wish to provoke his jealousy,” Max says. “The heart is a complicated and maddening thing.” Her thumb caresses Eleanor’s collarbone through the open neck of Eleanor’s shirt. “And we do look so very, _very_ good together.” She smirks, and Eleanor feels a pure flare of desire within her that has nothing at all to do with Charles.

Her mouth meets Max’s again, and then Max’s kisses flutter down her jaw, down her neck, warming like sun-scorched sand trickling through fingers. She gasps, clutching Max’s waist, and her gaze snags this time not on Charles, but on someone else who is staring straight at her. Anne Bonny, raising her head enough for both her eyes to be fully visible under her hat’s brim. Twin blades of ice trying to pierce Eleanor through.

She can’t make any sense of this. Why the fuck does Bonny look so pissed off at her? Could it be on Charles’ behalf? She casts about for some other reasonable explanation, but she can’t seem to find any, and then Max is doing her best to suck a bruise into Eleanor’s neck, and Eleanor swears out loud, and finds she doesn’t much give a shit what Bonny’s problem is.

She pushes Max away from her neck. “Let’s go,” she says, frantically. “Let’s go upstairs.” And Max laughs lightly, a sweet bubbling sound that makes Eleanor want her all the more. She takes Eleanor’s hand, something so innocent that still somehow always sets Eleanor’s heart to pounding every time, as if they’re about to embark on some great adventure, and upstairs they go.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are really appreciated! Find me on [tumblr](http://reluming.tumblr.com/) where I'll always be emotional about the amazing women of Black Sails.


End file.
